Trackball arrived

The lighted green trackball arrived today from Tornado Terry's. Once you start ordering parts, you know that there's no turning back. The trackball is an authentic Happ 3" and has got some heft to it... the ball spins easily and continues spinning when you give it a good push. This is going to look great as the center piece of the control panel (and as the saucer's central area - see the control panel overlay in the earlier post).

Player 1 - Player 2 Buttons

I want black buttons for Player1 and Player2 - there's not that many places that sell them and they're a bit difficult to track down. I found a place that has them in stock and they responded very quickly to my email requesting whether they had the items in stock.

Lizard Lick Amusements has them for $1.50 each which is very reasonable. It's shipping that's going to get me in the end if I keep ordering from different places. But that's okay - some places have stuff, some don't - I'll order parts where I can find them. I just placed my order and was emailed that they'll be shipped tomorrow.

Early design for the Control Panel Overlay

I may change my mind, but I like the idea of using the green lighted trackball as the center of a saucer. This is an early design I threw together, just to have something visual to get me thinking... I'll have it drawn by someone with better skills than mine, and I may go with more or fewer saucers in the background... or none at all.

Lighted Pushbuttons

After looking at all my options, I've decided to go with lighted buttons vs. non-lighted. I've asked around on the BYOAC forums and found that the recommendations for the Groovy Game Gear NovaGems are excellent.

They're definitely more pricey than non-lighted buttons, but considering that I'm only going to need 12 to 14 of them, I think the added cost will be worth it.

Going with the green... obviously.

Cabinet Color Scheme

Based on some feedback from a few people at the BYOAC forums and some friends I've shown the designs to, I've decided to create a 2-tone cabinet as shown here.

Suggestions from others who have built cabinets tell me it's time to start ordering components - from what I understand, building the cabinet can go quickly and then you're waiting for all the different parts to arrive.

I've gone ahead and ordered my first component - a Happ 3" trackball in translucent green - it'll light up and should look great on the control panel. Now I'm trying to decide on buttons - lit or unlit. I like the idea of buttons lit up via LEDs, but it might be too much. Solid green buttons might do just fine.

I ordered the trackball from Tornado Terry's on Sunday at a great price. I received an email from Terry telling me it shipped today. Great service. You can find Tornado Terry's arcade components and other stuff here.

Website information

While I'll be using the blog format to provide pictures and commentary during the build, I've also created a website (sort of a sub-website on my small business site) where I'll be posting references/links, possibly some video, and other randomness.

While I'm waiting to start on the cutting (next weekend), I've been playing with color concepts for the cabinet. You can view what I've come up with so far here.

I really only like option #2... maybe 4, but I like the black Control Panel and I think it will look good with green buttons and a trackball.

It always seems to start with a book...

... and that book is "Project Arcade" by John St. Clair - you can get a copy from Amazon.com here.

The author's website

The Build Your Own Arcade Cabinet Forum

...and the Project starts...

Welcome to my (hopefully successful) attempt at documenting a complete MAME arcade cabinet. I'll be providing photos and text to describe the process - I'll throw in a parts list and some links to my favorite references and maybe this project will be beneficial to someone else...

For those of you who aren't exactly certain what a MAME arcade cabinet is, you're about to find out...